Boss's Boycott: Barry Bonds Vanishes
by Dave Zirin
"There is no reminder
that Bonds ever even wore a Giants uniform."
The Commissar Vanishes is a coffee table book for
only the dourest of coffee tables. The hard-covered volume is a photographic
compilation of the way that Josef Stalin systematically erased his chief
political opponents, Leon Trotsky and his followers, from the history of the
Russian Revolution.
Page after glossy page plainly displays the desecration of memory at the
service of dictatorship. It shows before-and-after photos of people either
airbrushed to invisibility or crudely vandalized, their faces blacked out with
an ugly scribble.
Meet Barry Bonds, the Leon Trotsky of Major League Baseball. In 2007 Bonds
broke the most hallowed record in sports, passing Henry Aaron's record for home
runs. When he wasn't injured, this maestro of the batter's box packed San
Francisco's ballpark, despite a team that stank like cottage cheese left on a
radiator. At season's end, the Giants refused to re-sign him, with owner Peter
Magowan saying, "We're going in a new direction; that would not be going
in a new direction. The time has come to turn the page." That is surely
his right, but the page hasn't just been turned, it's been raggedly erased.
All traces of Bonds, the greatest player in baseball history, have vanished
from the Bay. The left-field wall no longer carries an image of Bonds chasing
Hank Aaron for the crown. There is no marker of where Bonds hit home run number
756. There is no reminder that Bonds ever even wore a Giants uniform.
"The left-field wall no
longer carries an image of Bonds chasing Hank Aaron for the crown."
But it's not just Magowan trying to "disappear" Barry Bonds. He has been
blackballed in a blatant and illegal act of Major League collusion, a bosses'
boycott. Yes, Bonds' fielding has become painful to watch in recent years, as
the seven time gold glover limped around the outfield on knees grinding
together without cartilage. But despite the agony of movement most of us take
for granted, Bonds still hit 28 home runs in 340 at bats, led the NL in walks,
and had an on base percentage of .480. Since 1950, only Ted Williams, Mickey
Mantle, Norm Cash, and Bonds himself have recorded higher OBP's. (Cash's epic
season was an anomaly in an otherwise middling career. That a player could have
a brilliant year out of nowhere, used to be one of the charms of baseball.
Today they would be accused of sprinkling steroids on their corn flakes.)
Maybe Bonds can no longer roam the outfield, but there are at least a dozen AL
teams that could use a designated hitter with a .480 OBP, not to mention a
player whose every game would sell tickets and every at-bat would provoke
baited breaths and empty bathrooms.
In this case of blackballing so obvious it would shame a Dartmouth frat house,
one would think the media would be raising hell. But they have largely been
yipping collusion lackeys. Bill Simmons, ESPN.com's Sports Guy, wrote,
"Opening Day came and went without Bonds for the first time in 22 years,
and nobody seemed to notice. I didn't think about him for more than two seconds
all spring. Did anyone? Can you remember being a part of a single "I
wonder where Bonds is going to end up?" conversation? Did you refresh ESPN.com incessantly in hopes of a
Bonds update?...Of course not. No one cared. The best hitter since Ted Williams
is gone and forgotten. We wanted him to go away, and he did."
"Bonds is pushing his
union to fight back."
There is one problem. Bonds doesn't want to go gently into that good night and
is pushing his union to fight back. He has asked the Players Association to
file collusion charges on his behalf and the union has served Commissioner Bud
Selig with papers. (There is a certain irony here as Bonds was hardly Big Bill
Haywood during his career. In 2003, he became the first player in thirty years
to not sign the Player's Association's group licensing agreement.)
The Player's Association's efforts on Bonds behalf have also
met with high profile derision. Newsweek's Mark Starr wrote "The union
approaches new heights of absurdity when it bothers to investigate whether
collusion has ended the career of baseball's all-time home run king, Barry Bonds,
who can't attract an offer to play anywhere this 2008 season. What the union
sees as possible collusion, once an honored practice among ownership, I see as
a rare display of common sense."
Bonds, according to Starr, is "widely regarded as a cancer in the
clubhouse."
This is moralistic spew. The idea that baseball owners would ruin their own
team's chances because they have collectively agreed to "turn the
page" is a violation of Bonds' rights and the unwritten social contract
they have with fans. And when one considers the absence of saints on Major
League Baseball teams, even on the God Squad in Colorado, it is all the more
drenched in hypocrisy.
Mike Gimbel, who is a former adviser on player trades and acquisitions to the
GM's of the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos, wrote it well.
"Bonds deserves far better than to be forced into
retirement and have his history coarsely expunged."
Good questions. Bonds deserves far better than to be forced into retirement and
have his history coarsely expunged. The overriding ethos of the sports world is
that of the meritocracy. If you are good enough, then you get to play. Yet a
man who can get on base 48% of the time, has been told to go home and a new
generation of fans will never see the Mozart of the batting cage. This is about
more than a baseball player. It's about people in power deciding on utterly unjust
grounds, who gets to take the field, who gets to be heard, and even who gets to
be remembered. Somewhere, Stalin smiles.
Dave Zirin is the author of "Welcome to the Terrordome:"
(Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Comment on
this article at www.edgeofsports.com.
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